AT&T Enters Home Security Market With IP-Based Digital Life

AT&T Enters Home Security Market With IP-Based Digital Life

by Michelle Maisto

AT&T has its sights set well beyond our smartphones and tablets. It wants to connect our lives—our cars, our medical records, our televisions. On April 26 AT&T expanded into another area, introducing Digital Life in an initial 15 markets. It's a home security solution, but to call it that downplays all it's capable of. If Digital Life senses motion on your porch while you're on vacation, it can begin videotaping. It can email you a photo of your kids arriving home from school, and it can send you a text when someone opens your liquor cabinet. It can turn on the coffee machine while you're in the shower, turn off the main water source when it senses a leak, and allow you to unlock your front door from across the country for the cat sitter or assign that person a keypad code so he can let himself in. AT&T has built a secure backend platform with Cisco, an easy-to-use app for customers, an expansive 3G network (that mobile customers are transitioning off) for everything to run on, and a business plan that emphasizes personalization and eliminates pricing guesswork. "It's going to be a game-changer," said Kevin Petersen, senior vice president of Digital Life. "The road map is very aggressive, of where we can go with this."